


Time Spread

by greycoupon



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, On the Run, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 21:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20982653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greycoupon/pseuds/greycoupon
Summary: When you're on the run, the days start to bleed together.





	Time Spread

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober day 11. Thanks @LizzieBee828 for the beta. Story takes place a few months after The Truth (9x19/9x20). My apologies to Thailand for mangling your geography and food.

Scully had been off all day and it was freaking Mulder out. They had been running for months and there were good days and bad days. But usually when it was the latter Mulder could see it coming. Scully didn’t have mood swings out of nowhere.

Today was different. They were in Thailand, staying right off the beach. Their “house” was little more than a shack. It had indoor plumbing but no hot water. It didn’t have a kitchen as much as an ancient stove off in the corner. Their bed was a worn mattress on the bare floor.

When they had inquired about renting the place, Mulder had asked if it had air conditioning. Once the owner's daughter had translated the question for the old man, he just burst into dry laughter.

But he had let them pay in cash for the month and hadn’t asked questions. That was what they needed.

As they had no way to store or keep food cool, they went shopping every day or so. Usually they would walk to the local market first thing in the morning. This morning Scully had refused to get out of bed and told Mulder to go without her.

When he had returned an hour later with banana leaves, eggplant, durian, Massaman curry and a large bag of jasmine rice, she was still in bed. He thought she was sleeping but when he checked on her after setting a pot of rice on the stove, she was awake and staring at the wall.

“Are you feeling okay, Scully?”. He was concerned and leaned over her to feel her head. Not that he really knew what to do if she was sick. She was the doctor. There wasn’t a clinic or even a drugstore in this tiny town.

She flinched away from his touch and sat up quickly.

“I’m fine,” she told him. Of course she was.

“Scully--,” he started to interject but she held up her hand.

“Really, I’m not sick. I’m going to take a bath now.” Without a word she stood up and walked into the bathroom. It didn’t have a door but she yanked the curtain shut so hard he was surprised it didn’t rip.

He didn’t want to press her. This place was tiny. It wasn’t like she could avoid him for long. They were in an awful, high stress situation. If he pushed her too much, a tiny problem could balloon into a huge issue. The last thing he wanted was to fight with her. The only thing they had in the world was each other. So he let her be and went back to tend to the rice.

She was in the bathroom for over an hour. He had long since finished cooking the rice and dished it out into two bowls. He then peeled and sliced the durian before placing the chunks on top of the rice. Still no sign of Scully.

“Food is ready!” he called out to her. He waited. And waited.

Finally she responded “Go ahead and start without me. I’ll be done soon.” She sounded...odd. He wanted to barge into the bathroom and make her tell him what was going on.

But he didn’t.

He sat down at the rickety table and picked at his food. After a good fifteen minutes she came out wrapped in a towel. Without looking at him she quickly got dressed.

She picked up the bowl and brought it to the table, sitting across from him. She stared at the food, completely uninterested in eating.

He reached across the table to grab her hand.

“Scully, look at me.” She looked at him and it was a punch to the gut to see the tears running down her face.

“What’s wrong? Please tell me what’s going on with you today. Whatever I did. I’m sorry.”

She glared at him and squeezed his hand so hard it would leave a bruise.

“How could you forget your son’s birthday?”

Oh fuck. It wasn’t that he didn’t think about William. He did. All the time. But he was something you dreamed about at night and but made yourself forget during the day to stay sane. They didn’t have a calendar and Mulder had not been keeping close track as the days went by.

She took his silence as confirmation and jumped up from the table. Before she could physically run away from him, he stood and wrapped his arms around her waist. He tucked her head under his chin and she started sobbing into his shirt.

“You never talk about him or mention him at all. Sometimes I wonder if you really care he’s gone.”

He winced. That was the grief talking. Of course it was the grief talking. She knew he loved their son. At least he hoped she did.

“Scully...I’m sorry. Of course I care. I just lost track of the days,” he told her.

Silence.

He looked down at her and stroked her hair.

“I miss him. Every day. I don’t bring him up because I know how painful it is for you “

She continued melting into his shirt.

He kept talking.

“I’m sorry. Maybe that was a mistake. It was a mistake. We should talk about him. I’m a psychologist. You’re a doctor. We both know ignoring a painful thing doesn’t make it go away. Can we talk about him? Letting the grief and pain build up isn’t healthy.”

She finally looked up at him and gave him a tremulous smile.

“I’d like that,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

Mulder felt the constant ache in his heart, the one that had been there since the day he left his family, dull slightly.

“Tell me everything. What did he like? Did he have favorite foods? What milestones did you see him hit? When was his first smile? Did you see him crawl?”

They talked. And cried. There was joy and heartbreak. It didn’t fix the gaping wound but it began the suturing process. It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt “How could you forget your son’s birthday?”.


End file.
